Menu

Eric Carle

Eeek! Georgetown’s art room has been invaded by some very hungry caterpillars! Kindergarten artists learned about the artwork made by author and illustrator Eric Carle and created their own Very Hungry Caterpillars.

Georgetown’s Art and Steam teachers collaborated on a very cool project. Our Kinders and First graders were challenged in Mrs. Totten’s STEAM Studio to design and build their perfect paint brush. (See the project in STEAM class here.) They thought about the kinds of marks they wanted to make with their brushes and created brushes that would dab, draw, and make different types of lines.

STEAM Brushes – ready to paint.

Their colorful brushes were put to the test in Mrs. Brouwer’s art class. First grade artists created an abstract landscape with their newly built brushes.

First step – a little texture rubbing.

Step two – putting those brushes to work with paint!

A little black paint to outline – and beautiful landscapes by First Graders are complete.

Kindergarten artists were also excited to create with their STEAM brushes. We explored the work of Eric Carle, and created a background of water for our darling Eric Carle inspired yellow ducks.

We wrapped up our Steam/Art Brush Project with a discussion about the brushes and how well they worked. Our First Grade and Kindergarten students had some great ideas to improve their brushes, including using clothes pins to hold cotton balls on the brushes so they could change the cotton balls when they got gooey with paint. Many wanted to go back to Steam class and figure out ways they could design ways to clean their brushes to re-use them, along with attaching more objects to the brush to make different painted lines. This was a great thinking + creating project, with beautiful results!

Kindergarteners know lots of cool things about spiders! We talked about spiders that jump, what spiders eat for lunch (flies, of course), and counted how many legs a spider has. We read Eric Carle’s “The Very Busy Spider” and made some awesome fuzzy spiders.

Kindergarten artists learned about the art element of texture as they created their spooky spiders. After they were given their fabric spider bodies, Kinders used their weekly vocabulary word describeto tell each other the texture they could feel on their spider bodies. They were excited to think up new “feels like” words including fuzzy, soft, furry, squishy, and even the scratchy texture on the underside of their fabric.

Kinders followed many directions to cut spider eyes and fangs, and loved folding and rolling paper to make fancy spider legs. They made sure they were not “glue monsters” as they glued their spider parts using “just a dot, not a lot”.

There are flocks of peacocks popping up in the Kindergarten hallway! The Kindergarten artists created these amazing peacocks after studying the artist Eric Carle. They discovered that Eric Carle wrote and illustrated many of their favorite picture books. After a fun and messy session of painting papers, the students cut their papers to create their peacocks.

Kindergarten artists studied the art of Eric Carle. They read many of his books and learned how he created his art. After painting papers in either warm or cool colors, the artists cut their papers to create these Spring butterflies.

Kindergarten artists created these fireflies in the style of Eric Carle to support our school SPARK project where we raised money to send solar powered lanterns to teachers in Uganda. Each teacher in our building read the story The Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle to introduce SPARK to the students. Kindergarteners learned about Eric Carle’s art and began the project by painting paper. They then used their painted paper to cut out the parts of their fireflies. The students worked hard on their fireflies and they turned out beautiful!

Read more about our SPARK, Spread A Little Light for the Nyaka School in Uganda, here.